Deferred

At a tempestuous meeting this evening of Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee — which at one point became a Tomlinson versus Tomlinson debate — it was agreed to defer a decision on the council’s loan to wi-fi company Digital City (UK) Ltd to the next meeting of the committee.

The committee agreed to a proposal by Mr Tomlinson (with amendments from Mr Moffatt) to defer a decision, pending clarification as to just who are the directors of Digital City (UK) Ltd — because Companies House records still show the only director as Rikki Hunt — and an investigation as to the providence of the investments in Digital City (UK) Ltd — because Companies House records show one of the shareholders to be Isle of Man registered aQovia Limited rather than UK registered aQovia UK Ltd. The main (90%) shareholder in aQovia Limited being Sara Kilduff whose main business is, apparently, a ‘virtual PA’.

The meeting also added to the catalogue of what in Mr Bluh’s view are ‘minor errors’; namely that entering an Isle of Man company — with full address — as a shareholder of Digital City (UK) Ltd rather than a UK one was just a matter of missing out the ‘UK’. Quite how this can be viewed as minor when the shareholder agreement underpinning the loan is with aQovia UK Ltd rather than the registered shareholder is something only Mr Bluh seems to ‘understand’. We were also asked to believe that not knowing who the registered directors are does not matter because the company has not made any ‘strategic decisions’. Seemingly, being eight months behind the original project plan and asking for variation of loan conditions are not strategic decisions.

Quite why Mr Bluh still has confidence in this ‘partnership’ is a mystery, especially as every time the company that constitutes the partnership makes a mistake, Mr Bluh refutes all responsibility. Why he expects any member of the public to have confidence in it is an even greater mystery.